Software giant's former tech chief is uncertain how Windows 8 will fare

People argue about 'are we in a post-PC world?'. Why are we arguing? Of course we are in a post-PC world. That doesn't mean the PC dies, that just means that the scenarios that we use them in, we stop referring to them as PCs, we refer to them as other things.

That statement sounds like your typical rhetoric from mobile players like Google Inc. (GOOG) or Apple, Inc. (AAPL). However, a man who was once considered destined to become the CEO of Microsoft Corp (MSFT) delivered it. That man is Ray Ozzie.

I. The Man Who Might Have Been CEO

Ray Ozzie's career at Microsoft was relatively short-lived, but he made quite a splash while he was there. After developing Lotus Notes in the 1980s and 1990s, working with International Business Machines, Inc. (IBM), Mr. Ozzie had founded Groove Networks -- makers of a collaborative shared notespace product. When Microsoft acquired Groove in 2005, as an addition to its Office Suite, Mr. Ozzie became Microsoft's Chief Technology Officer.

In 2006 Bill Gates departed from the role of chief software architect and willed the position to Mr. Ozzie, leading many to believe he was the heir apparent after new CEO Steve Ballmer retired. However, it was not to be. Clashes with current Windows President Steven Sinofsky reportedly led to Mr. Ozzie reevaluating the company and his role at it.

The 56-year-old software architect's comments were his first public comments since his Microsoft departure, and they came at an interesting time -- just hours after Apple's announcement of the iPad 3. Mr. Ozzie's speech was delivered at Geekwire's Seattle tech conference.

II. Ray Ozzie: "Shift" Needed for Windows 8 to be Successful

Mr. Ozzie offered some cautious praise for his former employer. He implies that when he first came to Microsoft, things were badly broken. He remarks:
My job there was primarily a change management job. I was asked by Bill (Gates) and Steve (Ballmer, the CEO) to come in, look at the company, decide what was broken and try your best to fix it.

I feel very good about a number of things that did change. The company's a lot different now, it's come a long way and I'm happy about some things and I'm impatient about other things.

A slew of Metro Ui apps in Windows 8 [Image Source: The Verge]

His mixed sentiments regarding his former employer are mirrored in his thoughts on its upcoming star product, Windows 8. He cryptically remarks, "If Windows 8 shifts in a form that people really want to buy the product, the company will have a great future. In any industry, if people look at their own needs, and look at the products and say, 'I understand why I had it then, and I want something different', they will not have as good a future. It's too soon to tell."

He did not elaborate much on what kind of "shift" he thought Windows 8 needed in order to be more appealing.

III. The "Gloom and Doom" Scenario

He was, however, happy to outline the worst-case scenario for Microsoft, though -- or as he calls it the "doom and gloom" scenario. He said that such a scenario would comprise customers switching fully to portable, non-Windows products.

Is the good old PC on its death-bed? Mr. Ozzie sure thinks so. He concludes, "It's a world of phones and pads and devices of all kinds, and our interests in general purpose computing -- or desktop computing -- starts to wane and people start doing the same things and more in other scenarios."

[Image Source: Sync-Blog]

Of course such statements have often proved premature in the past. For example, CNN Money famously wrote that Microsoft's consumer brand was "dying" in 2010. That same year Microsoft ripped off the biggest operating system sales in its history and had a strong showing on the gaming console market.

That said, Ray Ozzie was a voice that Bill Gates and others at Microsoft trusted. So perhaps his statement carries a bit more weight.

We can debate this stuff for ever. For some people a tablet will never work, because of personal preferences or because of the specialist type of work they do. But that doesn't change the fact that for the vast bulk of the activities that the vast bulk of the consumers (and enterprises) do, the tablet is good enough and comes with some big attractive advantages over the PC.

Whether that statement is true will be shown by how things unfold over the next couple of years.

Picking up on a couple of points.

Photography and iPads. I watch Photoshop TV regularly and recently iPads and iPad techniques have begun to figure in quite a lot of the shows content. An indicator of a shift I feel.